


And All Was Quiet

by nocturneblack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Arya-centric, F/M, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-04 00:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12157740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nocturneblack/pseuds/nocturneblack
Summary: The earth felt cold and dead and her world seemed lost but Gendry was warm and alive and right in front of her.Arya deals with the pain of loss while trying to hold onto the promise of love.





	1. Chapter 1

The world exhaled, breathing out the souls of the thousands that lay dead and cold on hardened earth, and all was quiet.

The ground was still frozen, thawing stubbornly and at its own pace, meaning that most had chosen to burn the bodies.

They hadn’t burned him. He was in the crypts, where a Stark belonged. And Arya knew that Jon Snow was a Stark, despite the revealed truth of his paternity. She had never been able to see him as a Targaryen—not when Bran had first told them, nor when she had seen him on the back of a dragon.

 _He is my brother,_ she thought to herself firmly as she stood just outside the entrance of the crypts, her feet as good as frozen and her legs unwilling to carry her down the steps.

_He is my favorite brother._

She did not let her mind whisper the word _was_.

She sucked in a sharp breath, to hold back a sob or maybe a scream, and the wintry air hit her lungs like a knife, leaving her chest burning. She bowed her head to bury her face in the soft fur collar of her cloak and wished for someplace warmer. Her grey eyes scanned the grey and white expanse of land and sky until they settled on a stack of thick, ashy smoke billowing skyward just off in the distance.

 _It will be warm there_ , was the reasoning she gave herself, and her feet, frozen a moment ago, sprang to life, walking briskly in the direction of the small structure leaking plumes of smoke. She thought of the smith to keep herself from thinking of her brother. She thought of the smith for another reason entirely.

The quiet that engulfed her as she moved through the castle’s courtyard was disarming. When she was a girl Winterfell had felt alive and bustling, knights and servants and her siblings passing through its gates and within its walls. The castle was once living and breathing, but now felt like a burnt, empty husk to Arya, its walls filled with the quiet steps of her and Sansa and not many others. She would hear the dull rolling of the wheels of Bran’s chair now and then, but he rarely spoke. She supposed none of them did.

As she made her way through the grounds her only companion was the wind, singing a song of an endless night and bitter cold. She knew, deep in her heart, that spring would feel neither joyful nor triumphant without Jon Snow.

She was thankful for the fires that Gendry kept burning in Winterfell’s forge. She was more thankful for the way that he talked to her. He had changed in other ways but was still honest, even blunt at times. She would ask him to tell her stories from his time spent with the Brotherhood and at the inn to fill the forge with the sound of anything but the crackle of the fire. Sometimes he was even able to make her laugh, only then she felt guilty for laughing when Jon was dead and would never laugh again.

The sound of a lone howl ripped through the song of the wind and the stillness of the air then, a mournful sound that shot through the numbness Arya felt. It came from the direction of the Wolfswood.

The forge was in her sight when she wondered if Sansa would notice her absence from the castle as nightfall approached.

“You seem to spend a lot of time with the smith,” was what her sister had said to her over breakfast a sen-night ago.

“That’s because I _do_ spend a lot of time with him,” she had shot back, before adding, “And his name is Gendry.”

It felt good to say his name, so she said it then as she walked closer to his door, her voice hoarse from disuse as the sound of his name mingled with the wind that roared dully in her ears.

Thick, inviting heat rushed out in a gust as soon as she pulled open the door to the forge, warming her entire body almost instantly. Gendry was sitting at the workbench, filing away at something that looked nothing like weaponry. They had little use for weapons after the Last Battle, and Arya knew that he spent most of his days forging practical things for the castle. He looked up from his work when she walked in, not startled at all by her presence. He fixed her with a penetrating gaze, the kind that sent a pleasant fluttering to her stomach and lower, until his lips quirked up in the slightest hint of a smile. He set his work down as she shed her cloak. He moved to make the fire smaller, tending to the flames so that the heat was comfortable rather than stifling and the room was not clouded with thick, acrid smoke.

“You’re working into the night,” she remarked.

“There is much to be done,” he answered, standing up to his full height, more than a head taller than her.

“It was both kind and wise of your brother to let me stay.” She knew he was speaking of Jon, not Bran. He didn’t say Jon’s name around her.

“I would have made you stay even if he didn’t ask you to,” she said, swallowing the painful lump in her throat. Her expression must have said it all, as if she hadn’t spent any time at all in the House of Black and White. After the Last Battle she was hardly able to hide her emotions anymore, her face practically an open book—especially around Gendry. Something flashed in his eyes, a mien she wasn’t fully able to read but that she recognized from all the other times she had visited his forge.

“You wouldn’t have had to make me,” he said. She sensed the unspoken words, the ones he had whispered to her after the battle as he held her while she cried against his chest. _“I’ll never leave you.”_ She reached for his hands. They were grimy and calloused from handling metal. Only one of her hands was calloused, from wielding a sword, though those callouses were beginning to disappear. She clenched his hands tightly in her own as she closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She tried to focus on him, _Gendry_ , but her thoughts were too loud—her mother calling to her, her father’s laughter, Robb telling her stories, Rickon shouting with childish joy, Jon calling her little sister. They grew to a roar, her head practically throbbing with the ghosts of her family, her home, so she dropped his hands and cupped his face instead, bringing his mouth down to hers.

And all was quiet save for the low crackle of flame and the sharp way he inhaled through his nose.

He responded immediately, like he always did, for _she_ always kissed _him_. His hands clutched her waist, pulling her body flush against his as her heartbeat thumped in her ears.

The earth felt cold and dead and her world seemed lost but Gendry was warm and alive and right in front of her. His hands slipped under her tunic and over her lower back, his mouth pushing against hers, giving her something so close to being whole that for the moment she could put her grief on hold.

When she kissed his neck he said her name, _Arya_ , whispered it, breathed it, a confirmation from his lips that she was _here_ , she was alive, she was not faceless. Her arms wrapped around his middle, pressing him closer to her, reminding herself that she had something left in this world—not untouched by the war but at the very least unbroken.

The sun was long past set and her sister and every guard in the castle would surely realize that she was not yet back but Arya didn’t dare leave the forge, didn’t dare leave him. He was far less hesitant than the other times she had stayed, and when she reached for the laces of his breeches he stilled her hand only so that he could lead them to his bed in the adjoining room. He was unhurried when he undressed her, and then when he undressed himself. He kissed the side of her face as he pushed inside of her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and held him close, wishing to hear his heartbeat against her own.

****

She walked back to Winterfell when the sun was just beginning to rise. It would be warmer that day; she could feel it, a promise in the wind. When she reached her chambers she found Sansa there, sitting on her bed and waiting for her. Arya didn’t let the surprise show on her face.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Sansa said coolly, a stern expression marring her delicate features.

“Doing what?” Arya asked dismissively, kicking off her boots.

“Staying there all night.”

She fixed Arya with a steely glare.

“Why?”

Sansa stood up, staring down her nose at Arya.

“ _Why?_ You’re not stupid, Arya! Do you know what people are saying about you and him?”

“What they’re saying is probably true,” Arya said tonelessly, mentally bracing herself. Sansa inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply, a weary sigh that made Arya think of their mother.

“You have lain with him then? He has ruined you?”

Arya said nothing, letting her eyes answer. Sansa shook her head, angry red blotches coloring her fair cheeks.

“You cannot keep doing this. I will not allow it,” she said.

“What are you going to do, lock me in my room at night?” Arya challenged. Sansa knew her well enough to know that could sneak out of any room.

“He is only here because Jon allowed him to stay,” Sansa said, and Arya’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.

“ _I_ don’t have to allow him to stay.”

Arya fought to keep her face blank, knowing that her eyes would betray her.

“You cannot make him leave,” she grit out, her hands in tight fists at her sides.

“I can and I will,” Sansa said calmly.

Arya was anything but calm as she shook her head rapidly, her composure slipping.

“ _You cannot take him from me_.”

She could feel the hot sting of tears at the back of her eyes.

“The Others took Jon from me and I will not let _you_ take Gendry from me. I would not let even the gods take him from me, I swear it.”

Her voice was growing louder, shaking with panic and indignation.

“I am the Lady of—” Sansa began, but Arya’s voice shouted over her.

“ _I will not let you!_ ”

“Arya,” Sansa said softly, fear suddenly showing in her eyes as she regarded her sister, shaking with hysteria, her grey eyes blazing with fury.

“If you banish him I will follow him,” Arya said, and her body was shaking but her words were as solid and resolute as steel. Sansa’s eyes widened as if she was coming to the conclusion that her sister loved some bastard smith enough to leave her home for him. In truth, Arya didn’t know whether or not she was bluffing.

“This cannot continue,” was all Sansa said before sweeping from the room.

Arya’s chest felt hollow.

****

Sansa seemed to deliberate on the issue of Gendry.

Arya still snuck out of the castle while everyone slept, knowing her sister would not catch her if she was only away for a few hours at a time.

“Sansa knows,” Arya told him not long after the confrontation with her sister. She lied beside him in his bed, both of them fully clothed. His head rested on her stomach, his arms wrapped around her. He looked up at her.

“Knows what?”

“About me coming here at night. About… us,” Arya said, feeling suddenly and strangely shy.

“How?” There was panic in his voice.

“I wasn’t exactly going out of my way to keep it a secret.”

After everything she’d gone through keeping secrets seemed pointless. Jon was dead and Sansa wanted to get mad at her for giving her maidenhead to someone lowborn.

Gendry sat up, his eyes like a storm.

“Arya, she could have me killed!”

She could see that he was angry at her for being so calm.

“She won’t,” Arya said flatly.

“You don’t know that! Your brother saw me as a friend, but to Sansa I am nothing.”

She leaned forward, gripping his forearm tightly. His eyes locked onto hers, his brow furrowed.

“I will not let her kill you, do you understand me? I will not let _anyone_ kill you.”

He seemed to understand what she was telling him, staring at her in awe. Very slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he nodded. When she released his shoulder he brought his hands up to hold her face, and for once _he_ kissed _her_ first.

When he took her that night it was fast and rough and the shouts that passed her lips were raw but for once had nothing to do with pain and loss.

****

As it turned out, Arya needed not wait for Sansa to make up her mind about what would be done with Gendry. A raven had arrived from King’s Landing, from the dragon queen herself, declaring that Gendry Waters be recognized as Gendry Baratheon. It appeared that the queen had picked up more than just a few languages from her time in Essos, sending several similar letters to known bastards throughout the realm, declaring that every child born was to be given their father’s name.

Sansa asked her if she knew he was a king’s bastard.

“Does it matter?” was all Arya said.

It mattered to the queen. She had ordered Sansa to bestow Hornwood—effectively abandoned after the death of Larence Snow in the Last Battle—upon the newly named Baratheon, so long as he sign an agreement stating he would never make a claim for the throne.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said to Arya one afternoon as they sat in the room in the castle that Sansa had begrudgingly given to him. He was to leave for Hornwood in two days, taking a troop of castle guards and servants with him.

Arya grabbed his hand, large and rough in her own.

“I know,” she told him, still so unsure of what to say.

She decided that all of it was unfair, like a cruel joke was being played on her. To have him survive the Last Battle, for him to end up at Winterfell, for Sansa to threaten to banish him, all of it to happen only to have the queen send him away, not as a bastard but as a lord. Arya had sworn that no one would take him from her, and now he was being sent away by a piece of paper that gave him a name, a modest castle, and a small amount of land and smallfolk.

 _He will be safe,_ were the words that consoled her.

_He will be alive. You will not lose him like you lost Jon._

She lied awake in bed that night, thinking of her dead brother and of Gendry being taken away from her. She said a private goodbye to him the night before his departure in his room, their bodies meeting once more. She said a public goodbye to him the morning of at Winterfell’s gates, not caring that the eyes of everyone in the castle were watching them. She hugged him tightly.

“This won’t be the last time we see one another,” she swore to him. He nodded, his expression marked with a muted sadness.

“I know,” he said to her.

She watched his party ride off into the distance, keeping her eyes on him until she could no longer see his horse against the horizon.


	2. Chapter 2

With Gendry gone Arya found few reasons to leave the castle. She confined herself to the four walls of her room, leaving only to eat meals with her siblings in the great hall.

She thought of Jon more than ever. There were reminders of him at every turn in the castle.

She took Needle out one morning; she hadn’t held it in months. She ran her finger along the blade and thought of something Gendry said to her after the battle.

_“You’re not a killer anymore.”_

She ran her fingers over the handle and remembered Jon’s smile when he gave it to her. She buried it at the bottom of the wooden chest at the foot of her bed.

At night she thought about the words she had shouted in anger at Sansa, at least six moons ago.

_If you banish him I will follow him._

It was something that was easy to threaten but troublesome to act on. Leaving Winterfell meant leaving her father’s and brother’s graves. It meant leaving every memory of Jon Snow behind in the castle’s walls.

So she stayed.

She stayed as the days grew longer and the air continued to warm. She stayed and did her best to help Sansa tend to castle affairs. She stayed and watched men train in the yard, wishing to join but being paralyzed by the thought of digging Needle out from its storage place. Even the thought of swinging a training sword was unbearable, for no matter how much she wished to dance again it still reminded her of the Battle, of being victorious over the Walkers, over death itself, but losing Jon in the process.

 _They will write songs about you,_ Gendry had told her once—something he’d said to her once while they sat by the hot springs. _About the way you fought_.

That would have thrilled her when she was a girl, to know that some Northern bard was perfecting his draft of _Arya the Brave_ or _Arya the Wolf_ or whatever name history decided to call her, but now it made her feel nothing.

They would write songs about Gendry, too, surely. Perhaps they would call him the Young Stag, or maybe the Great Bull, fighting alongside the King in the North, wielding a great, heavy hammer in a way that looked effortless.

Thinking about Gendry made her heart hurt.

 _He’s not dead_ , she told herself, _but Jon_ is.

****

Arya looked over the letter she held carefully in her hands, reading the small, unpracticed script over and over. It was from the Lord of Hornwood. He had apparently learned to read and write at some point during his time away. The letter was unceremonious, made out to _Arya_ instead of _Lady Arya Stark_ and containing none of the pointless formalities that most lords would include in their correspondences. She reread the sentences that stood out the most:

_It is lonely here without you. When will I see you again?_

It had been nearly a year since he left. The image of his face staring back at her one last time as he rode out of Winterfell’s gates on horseback was burned into her memory. If she closed her eyes she could see his expression, his eyes seeking hers, blue and longing and pained. She pictured it often, finding solace in knowing that he was out there, alive, even if he was not with her.

She read the words over and over again until she decided she would visit him. She could stay with him at Hornwood for a fortnight, she could lie with him at night and _feel_ again, and she could look into his eyes and tell herself that he was alive, for true. And at the end of the fortnight she could return to Winterfell, to her family and the castle and her brother’s and father’s bones.

Though she was growing surer of her plan by the second, she knew there was one thing she had to do before she left. She set the letter down and tugged on her boots and made her way outside, heading toward the crypts.

She stood at the top of the steps and found that this time her feet did not fail her. She descended the steps slowly but surely, preparing to visit Jon Snow’s grave for the first time. There was no statue for him, for there was no longer a stonemason at the castle. She kneeled beside the simple tomb, reaching out a hand tentatively and placing it against the cold, grey rock, her skin glowing orange in the torchlight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the memory of her brother, her voice shaking. Tears sprang to her eyes. She repeated the words once more, the syllables catching on her lips as she choked back a sob.

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

For in the end she hadn’t been able to protect him from the White Walkers, just like he hadn’t been able to protect her from the monsters she’d endured after leaving home. They would write songs about her, about how she saved the realm, but in the end she couldn’t save her best brother.

When she returned to the castle the sobs that she’d held back in the crypts poured out of her, as quick and fluid as a stream. She collapsed on the furs of her bed, not caring if every soul in the castle heard her cries.

That was how Sansa found her. Her older sister did not hesitate to lie down right beside her, wrapping Arya in her arms as she stroked her hair. Arya clung to her, her tears soaking the front of Sansa’s dress.

“I know,” she said amidst Arya’s cries. “I know.”

When Arya’s tears finally subsided, Sansa pulled back to look at her.

“I know you won’t believe me, but I miss him, too.”

Arya looked into her eyes and knew that her words were true, not simply meant to placate.

“I miss them all,” she whispered. Sansa nodded, tears coating her blue irises.

Arya was not sure how long they lied on her bed like that, but after some time she spoke.

“I need to go see him.”

Sansa nodded.

“Gendry,” she said.

“Yes. But I won’t be gone long,” Arya quickly added, “a fortnight at most.”

Sansa nodded again.

“You are not angry?” Arya asked.

“No, Arya, I’m not.”

“Because he’s a lord now?” Arya felt a familiar flair of annoyance toward her.

“No,” her sister told her, “because there’s no point to living if you’re deprived of the thing worth living for.”

****

On the morning of Arya’s departure she was in the stables tending to the horse that she’d be taking to Hornwood. As she strapped a pack to the horse’s saddle she became taken with the idea of visiting the godswood before she left. As odd as that felt—for she’d see the godswood again in a fortnight—her feet carried her there before her mind could fully process it. She was surprised to find Bran there, sitting in his chair before one of the heart trees.

“How did you get all the way out here?” she asked him.

He turned his face to her, fixing her with that penetrating gaze that she found unnerving but was still able to see traces of Bran in.

“Sansa took me. I told her to come get me before you left. But you’re here now. It is best we say our goodbyes now.”

She stepped closer to him, unsure whether or not she should attempt to hug him.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“That is what you think,” Bran told her.

Arya’s heart sped up, beating loudly in her breast. She knew that her brother could not see things to come with perfect clarity, the way he could see things that had been, but fear nonetheless gripped her.

“Is something going to happen to me? Will I be killed on the way there or the way back?”

A dozen scenarios raced through her mind. She could fall off her horse and break her leg. She could fall through the ice. She could—

“No. You will stay with him—for far longer than you are thinking right now.”

Arya sucked in a breath, realizing that Bran could see her with Gendry.

“At Hornwood?” she asked slowly. Bran nodded.

“What will I do there?” she questioned, wanting him to give her the details that he may or may not have been able to see.

Bran’s face took on a serene expression, his eyes gazing up at her as if he was explaining something very simple.

“ _Live_ ,” he told her.

When she departed later that morning Sansa was alone to see her off. Needle hung at Arya’s side once more; she would be able to carry a piece of Jon Snow with her, always.

“Send a raven as soon as you arrive,” Sansa said. 

“Of course.”

“And you will be back in a fortnight?”

Arya could hear in her voice that she was doubtful, and she wondered if Bran had said something to her. She paused before answering.

“I think I might be gone longer than that,” she said, and a smile bloomed on Sansa’s face.

“In fact I am sure of it,” she added as a smile of her own lit up her face.

When Arya left Winterfell’s gates she turned back to look at her sister once more, and found that Sansa was still smiling.

****

She reached Hornwood after eight days of riding. She and her horse were both tired, but as soon as she saw the castle gates a fiery energy began to seep into her breast.

“Tell Lord Gendry that Arya Stark is here to see him,” she said to the guards who had looked her over with unease; it was rare to see a lone rider—it was rare for castles to receive any visitors at all after the war had claimed such a large number of the population in the North.

“My lady,” the two guards said before one allowed her through the gates and the other ran off to find Gendry.

After several long minutes she saw him, accompanied by the guard and walking toward her. It filled her with a private joy to see that his dress was still plain, though in a distinctly Northern style. After a year of living there he appeared to be well-adjusted.

When he saw her an expression of shock and delirious happiness overtook his face as he broke into a sprint. He swept her into his arms when he reached her, and Arya found that she didn’t mind one bit, her arms wrapping around his neck in a fierce hug. She felt a familiar feeling deep in her bones, a feeling that she had fought so hard to suppress but now seemed to radiate from her chest to her fingertips.

It was simple.

It was love.

When her feet touched the ground again Gendry pulled back to look at her. His blue eyes glinted in the sunlight, and the air felt warmer to Arya than it ever had before in the North.

“You’re here,” he said, and he was grinning, nearly laughing.

She looked up at his face. Her heart did not hurt. She smiled back at him.

“I’m here.”


End file.
